METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISPOSAL OF A BROAD SPECTRUM OF WASTE FEATURING OXIDATION OF WASTE

A deep well is utilised to form a reaction chamber for combustible waste in water. A stream of water borne combustible waste is delivered into a deep well, sufficiently deep to obtain a pressure and temperature in a bottom located reaction chamber (20) at which the water becomes supercritical, there being a pipe (26) for delivering oxygen under pressure for combusting oxygen dissolved in the supercritical water with the waste materials. The reaction is exothermic to sustain itself. It is started preferably by electric current flow to initially raise the temperature in the reaction chamber. The preferred structure is a cased abandoned well having a surrounding cement bond (12) to the formation thereby retarding heat loss into the formation, the bottom located reaction chamber sustaining supercritical conditions.